Saturday, March 28, 2009

Galata tower made by the Genovese when the Italians had started to gain more power in Constantinopolis, during the Byzantine Era..Soon later they started to govern the trade. This tower was built by the Genovese around the year 1345.Today it has a restaurant on the top of the tower having a 360 degree-wondeful view.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Galata tower made by the Genovese when the Italians had started to gain more power in Constantinopolis, during the Byzantine Era..Soon later they started to govern the trade. This tower was built by the Genovese around the year 1345.Today it has a restaurant on the top of the tower having a 360 degree-wondeful view.

Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi (Turkish: Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi), who lived in the 17th century in Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire, is one of the first aviators to have succeeded in flying with artificial wings. He is supposed to have been inspired by and used the studies of Leonardo da Vinci on the flight of birds. He started flying from the Galata Tower, and managed to fly over the Bosphorus. The few people known to have succeeded in this kind of flight are an aviator from Moorish Spain and an English monk in the 9th and 12th centuries, respectively. One of Hezarfen's friends Lagari Hasan Celebi is known to have performed the first flight with a rocket in a conical cage filled with gun powder. Ahmet Celebi, because of his vast scientific knowledge was given the name Hezarfen, meaning "a thousand sciences". In his early studies of flying, he was motivated by the 10th century Turkish scientist Ismail Cevheri. Celebi, after carefully studying Cevheri's findings and when he felt confident enough arranged a public demonstration. He climbed the Galata Tower and launched himself into the wind; he passed over the Bosporus and landed in the slopes of Üsküdar on the Anatolian side.